As with my previous topic, there comes a point where the show itself runs out of information and I have to go into speculation territory. However, there are other sources that are possibly relevant.

Here’s something interesting: The power of the Elements displays as a big, powerful Rainbow. Where have we seen that? The Sonic Rainboom that triggered all of the Mane6’s cutie-marks? Yep. However, there’s something even earlier than that. As far back as Generation 1 My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle and the rest of the 1980’s series there was an artifact that had serious magical powers of harmony called the Rainbow of Light.

What if the Rainbow of Light was one of the Elements of Harmony from before Celestia and Luna? Which one, I wonder? It’s likely Magic/Friendship, but for some reason it tickles me to think it was Loyalty, and that the Sonic Rainboom was actually Rainbow Dash’s first demonstration of her connection to her element.

In which case Celestia and Luna didn’t create the Elements. They found them. Probably one at a time during some massive quest, and deliberately bonded to them, assembling them into set as a weapon against Discord.

Six elements, two wielders. Okay, so they split them three and three. But which three? Especially when one behaves as a focus for the other five.

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to think that one would get the focus, and the other would get the five? Who would get the focus then? You’d think Celestia… but I wonder. Since Magic/Friendship wasn’t in the ruins, it had to be summoned. Maybe it was Luna’s, and the banishment of Luna sent it off into a limbo of its own, which it had to be summoned from.

In which case Celestia was gambling a lot. She had to gamble that when Nightmare Moon showed up, that the five elements activating would drag the sixth out of limbo.

There is another gemstone artifact that acts like a focus, just like the sixth Element. The Crystal Heart. Could this be the Element of Love? Perhaps Celestia and Luna, after the defeat of Discord, kept looking for more Elements, and their search brought them to the Crystal Empire.

In which case, they didn’t attack King Sombra just because he enslaved the crystal ponies, but because he had in his possession another Element equal in power to the ones they already possessed, and refused to give it up. When they blasted him into smoke, his final curse didn’t just throw the Crystal Empire out of phase to imprison the crystal ponies, but more importantly put the Crystal Heart out of the alicorn’s reach.

Oh yes, and another interesting bit from the G1 series: The villain of that first special had an artifact called the Dark Rainbow which gave the wielder secret knowledge that allowed him to transform pretty much anything living into anything else. Let's go into that in more detail next time.